Saturday, 23 April 2016

While waiting for the next round of Iron Painter to be announced I've added a few more pieces to my Wildreness terrain collection.

The well.

It was built stone by stone. The material is polystyrene, which I cut to small bits and then pressed against gravel to give them a rocky texture and shape. I glued them with PVA. This well and the wall you'll see below are my first attempts at miniature dry stone structures. I'm very happy with the result.

When the structure was built and the glue dried completely, I gave it a coat of plaster + PVA. After that it was just texturing the base and it was ready for painting.

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Dry stone wall.

The building technique was the same, except that the wall has a balsa wood core.

Ready for painting.

Another shot of the finished product. I plan to make several more wall sections, including one with a gate.

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I finished another Citadel Wood. This means I have 3 large and 4 small tree scenery pieces. No more Citadel kits to build, but I have an unopened Hanging Trees box from Wyrd. That will do for 2 or 3 more small ones.

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Speaking of forests, I visited one recently. Great both for recreation and for harvesting useful ingredients. I brought home some roots for use on future projects.

Thursday, 14 April 2016

"The way is shut. It was made by those who are Dead, and the Dead keep it, until the time comes. The way is shut."

- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King.

Three of my clubmates and I entered Wyrd's Iron Painter competition this year, and the above vignette is my entry for the second round. I don't normally do display pieces, so this was an interesting exercise. I built the entire base from scratch, I painted it using almost exclusively washes and glazes over a white undercoat (I just painted on a few highlights at the end to finish it off). Bright colours, as well, are not what I usually put on my miniatures. But this really works. All in all I am very happy with the result and I learnt a lot in the process. Hope it fares well; my opponent is a tough one.

I took some pictures as I worked:

The building began with rough shapes. The wall was cast in plaster, the stairs are balsa wood and the rocks polystyrene. A large undead knight was originally meant to stand on the base, but in the end I changed my mind and went with the ghost miniature.

I had most fun making the door. It started from balsa, cut into shape and textured to resemble wood.

The metalwork is plasticard and pins.

The trees that flank the door are part wood, part air-drying clay.

The modelling part is finished.

I had fun painting with washes and thin glazes. This is what it looked like after the first couple of layers.

More washing and glazing.

The state of the base before I started work on the miniature. Later, when the miniature was in place, the lower steps felt too empty. So I added some bones. They also gave a darker tone to the piece.

The miniature is a simple one. It's one of the Spirit Host ghosts, with a
Bretonnian knight's face and a crown. I added the 'hairs' made of thin
wire and static grass, each glued in place individually. It took a
while... but it was worth it.

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